Most of us have been taught that building a sustainable and fulfilling career involves climbing the corporate ladder. However, with portfolio careers becoming the new norm, this restrictive approach is falling out of fashion.
Careers are rarely one size fits all.
Sometimes the wrong job can teach us even more than the right one, helping us figure out what we truly prioritise in a work environment.
Everyone deserves the freedom to explore what they are interested in.
Though our career options are limitless, our ability to go after what we want can be obscured by concerns around survival, family, and societal expectations. These concerns are so consequential that they can keep us at jobs we hate with toxic or even abusive managers.
Our jobs represent the service and time we exchange in order to earn our quality of life. Therefore it stands to reason that doing a job we despise for a paltry sum is corrosive to our emotional health. This is why it is essential that we do what we can now to invest in our future. This means exploring our values, talents, and desires.
So how do we do this?
Careers aren't a straight line. They’re squiggly. Squiggly Careers is a concept developed by Sarah Ellis and Helen Tupper, founders of the award-winning company; Amazing If. Amazing If aims to make squiggly careers better for everyone offering a vast range of services including career development workshops, online courses, free online toolkits and coaching aimed to help workers navigate the ‘squigglyness’ of the career path and make their careers work for them.
One key aspect of navigating a squiggly career is getting to know yourself. Identifying your desires gives you a clear objective, and understanding your weaknesses provides invaluable feedback that will guide you in the right direction.
Alongside this, understanding your values is key to figuring out what it is you want. Being particular about the type of role or experience we want to have can give us a good goal post, but it is usually wise to account for the possibility that things don’t go exactly as we imagined.
One of the best ways to infuse flexibility into your approach is to consider your values. This way you always have a guiding light that can help you navigate foreign waters. Knowing your values not only serves as a compass but can also help increase your motivation for the work you do and help create high trust teams, particularly if you learn the values of those you work with. By identifying your values, you identify what avenues are open to you.
Being able to navigate challenging situations at work is essential to navigating a squiggly career. Sometimes, a toxic work environment can lure us to a false assumption that we do not enjoy the work. Resolving our role in the drama can give us clarity on how we really feel within certain environments.
When I found myself working for a toxic manager, I found that even the simplest aspect of a workday became insurmountably challenging. It was only once I was able to recognise that I was doing my best and the fact that I never received any positive feedback or recognition was a larger problem than my work ethic that I was able to understand that I couldn’t outwork or outshine my manager's biased expectations of me. This was a structural issue rather than an indictment of me. With this realisation, I was able to make a choice to leave and find a job that suited me better.
There are moments in all of our careers where we must make difficult choices or withstand difficult circumstances. Perhaps the most important quality when it comes to any career is resilience. Ebbs and flows in your career can be mild or intense, be that a problem requires teamwork or problem solving, to a poor work environment in general.
In their toolkit, ‘Shape of your resilience’, Sarah and Helen outline the different responses we might have to a challenge.
A ‘V’ scenario is one where we can respond quickly and navigate a challenge with confidence. This might be something like an email from a client coming in that requires a swift and creative response. The dip is as swift as the rise, and we get back on track swiftly.
A ‘U’ scenario is one where this response is slower. This could be something like a poor work review from a superior or a tense disagreement with a colleague. It may require some guidance or take a little longer to figure out.
Then there is the ‘L’ scenario, which refers to more severe cases that require a lot of effort on our part to be able bounce back and recognise the possibilities available for ourselves.
Sarah experienced an L scenario when a rocky manager-managee relationship concluded with her being let go. This experience left her feeling dejected, unheard and angry, leading to a plateau in her ability and enthusiasm for her career. This situation required a longer plateau, which was necessary for her to recover from the burnout and emotional toll of such a difficult circumstance. She needed to process the experience in order to pursue a healthier work environment more suited to her values and her needs.
In the workplace and in life in general, there are many things that may knock us off track. This is why resilience is so integral to success. Our mindset can make or break us in times of challenge. Exploration and learning will not only increase your resilience but also illustrate your capacity to succeed.
A squiggly career requires a strong support network and practical experience opportunities where you can develop your core hard skills and important soft skills to increase your employability levels and reduce your career struggles. This is where ELE Hub can help.
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